The Human Touch

A letter jolted me out of my complacency, reminding me that real change is truly possible.

Each year, as the first blast of the shofar sounds, my soul twinges. For with late summer vacations and the back-to-school frenzy, I am usually completely unprepared for the challenge the mournful wail issues. This year, however, I received a letter that jolted me out of my complacency and made me start thinking a bit earlier about the opportunities of the New Year. As I read it, I was reminded of a time over ten years ago...

THE SURGEONS

"MEDICAL STOODENT! MEDICAL STOODENT!!" The shout reverberated down the long corridor. I startled and looked up. Purposefully striding down the well-scrubbed hall were five men in long white coats. Backlit by the early morning sunlight beginning to wash through the windows, they appeared larger than life, like the saviors of a universe in a B-rated movie.

But this was not a movie, this was a County hospital. And though their demeanor definitely suggested that of cinematic heroes, they were not world saviors. They were SURGEONS. It was 5:30 a.m., I was 24, on my first clinical rotation as a third year medical student, and I had entered into their territory where I would reside for the next six weeks. The domain of the surgeon was unlike any other I had ever seen, and certainly my two years of book learning had not at all prepared me.

They started their day well before sunrise, and finished after dark. Pithy statements governed their habits: "Eat when you can, sleep when you can, and DON'T MESS WITH THE PANCREAS!" As residents at the largest County hospital west of the Mississippi, they were constantly busy. The sound of their beepers punctuated any quiet moment and it seemed there were an endless supply of appendectomies, gallstones, and gunshot victims.

Perhaps the sheer intensity and pressure dictated that they, much like soldiers, became detached.

Perhaps the sheer intensity and pressure dictated that they, much like soldiers, became detached. The chief resident, Dr. David Rosen, who was six years into the program and highly skilled, epitomized this attitude. After a particularly hard case where they were unable to save the patient, he would quip to the other surgeons who were noticeably shaken, "Well, all bleeding eventually stops …"

He led his team of underlings through the busy hospital floors and expected the crowds to part. Remember, these were the surgeons. Frequently, he would stop and pepper his group with complicated technical questions, and scoff if they did not get them right. He was training them to be tough -- to have the audacity and ego to cut into people, and he took his job very seriously.

My six weeks passed in a blur of sleepless nights on call, drawing endless tubes of blood and holding open multiple diseased abdomens. Even I, with a distinctly internal medicine bent, began to depersonalize the numerous patients. The intricacies of their family life are inconsequential if their appendix is about to burst.

YODA

But one patient stands out. In retrospect, I think even the surgeons recognized something about her because they nicknamed her "Yoda."

She was 75 years old, brought into the hospital from her small town in Oaxaca, Mexico and I was assigned to examine her. When I first approached her bed, I noticed something was very different. Far from the chaos that characterizes hospitals, a sense of tranquility lingered around her. Her creased, weathered face peered out from under the sheets, her expression warm and welcoming. She smiled with her entire face, and from the time I entered the room I could feel her crinkled glance on me, watching and learning.

In my halting Spanish, I found out from her sons that for one month her abdomen had been increasing in girth, but they had only been able to convince her to come to the U.S. after her skin turned yellow. She had a job to do in her small village; she was the highly revered healer.

When I examined her abdomen, she clasped my hand and held it to the place that hurt. My hand tingled in her grasp as if she were transmitting some sort of energy. I looked into her eyes and I got chills. Her gaze was transcendent. The flecks of light appeared to be summoning the wisdom of the ages. Transfixed, I stared into the deep brown depths a few seconds longer, but my beeper went off and I had to leave.

A few tests revealed what even I, as a third year student, knew to be bad -- pancreatic cancer, a usually fatal diagnosis. For the surgeons, however, this was an opportunity, a chance to try the vaunted "Whipple" procedure. In ten percent of pancreatic cancer, a Whipple procedure is curative, and the chief resident was eager, almost excited, to add this complicated surgery to his repertoire.

The surgeons walked into her room en masse and the attending physician asked Yoda to stand up so he could examine her.

There she was -- all 4'8" of her, in a long white nightgown, her gray hair cascading down her back, surrounded by the large group of surgeons. Each was over a foot taller than she was, in freshly starched white jackets, intently listening to the senior surgeon and trying to curry favor by shouting out answers to his questions.

Yoda's eyes settled on the chief resident. He was tall, confident and unscathed, while she was stooped, serene and almost angelic.

Far more interesting than the surgeons' interaction, however, was the sun streaming through the dirty windows lighting up tiny bits of floating dust in its path. It played not on the surgeons, those paeans of vitality, but on Yoda, illuminating her in an almost ethereal light. She looked up at the surgeons not with fear, but rather bemusement and compassion. As they pontificated and jockeyed for position, she turned her gnarled gaze on each surgeon until her eyes settled on the chief resident. The juxtaposition was striking; he was tall, confident and unscathed, while she was stooped, serene and almost angelic.

The next morning they opened her abdomen, found it riddled with cancer and, unable to do anything, closed her back up. I found out from her sons that she was going back to her village to die.

THE CHIEF RESIDENT

Three years later, in a fancy private hospital across town, I was an intern on the Oncology ward. Late one Saturday evening while on call, I noticed a familiar person. It was the chief resident, but he looked entirely different. His confident swagger had been reduced to a slow, slouched struggle, and his eyes that once sparked with the glint of conquest were flat.

"Dr. Rosen?" I ventured, "Are you on staff here now?"

"Oh, Jackie, please call me David," he mustered. "No, I'm here for her… she's my sister…" He pointed to a hospital room where a 36-year-old mother of two young kids was dying of cervical cancer.

He came not as a powerful surgeon, but as bereaved brother.

He went into the room and a few hours later came out. I could see the grief that wet his eyes, but behind it was something new; the bravado was gone, replaced by vulnerability.

"I'm so sorry," I stammered.

He looked at me somewhat absently and shook his head slightly. "Oh God, it's so different on this side."

He took a deep breath and walked away, broken, shaking his head. His sister died early the next morning.

* * *

I didn't think about him again until recently when I received a letter. Actually, a catalog of course offerings at my old medical school. I smiled when I read the title of a new required seminar:

"Morality in Medicine: How to Apply the Human Touch to Surgery," taught by Dr. David Rosen, my chief resident.

For some reason, I thought back to Yoda and her wise eyes. I doubt when she was fixated on the young chief resident that she was praying to be saved. I think she knew her fate. I wonder if in her gaze she was hoping that he would open his eyes to the pain and suffering around him, and allow himself to be softened by it, to be affected by it. Or maybe she prayed he would close his eyes tightly and listen to the clarity within. Or maybe both.

I don't know, but this year on Rosh Hashana, as the shofar wails, beseeching us to change -- to see outside the trivia of our own lives, but also to have the courage to listen to the tiny voice within -- I will be thinking about the ancient, clear eyes of Yoda, and about the remarkable transformation of the surgeon, and be heartened to know that real change is truly possible.

Visitor Comments: 11

(11)
Ruth Housman,
September 3, 2007 7:13 AM

what cuts

Thank You for a moving article that is about humility and compassion. It's almost inevitable that doctors facing such massive pain on a continuous basis pull back emotionally and start to view the human as more body than soul as they are the fixers of the machinery. If they dwell on the person within, they are apt at times to be overwhelmed. Sometimes objectivity is a good thing as they do need to filter out to survive the ordeal of working with so much anguish in the performance of their jobs. On the other hand, it is so often, from the patient's perspective, the little things that bring hope or some bringing in of the light. In life I do believe we need balance in all things and surely compassion in doctoring, may be more healing and more important than we know. Certainly those who look for a "good surgeon" are interested in perfomance but the cutting edge has always to do with the compassionate "self" and a truly GREAT doctor has both. We are all in this together!

(10)
Aharon Goldstein,
September 3, 2007 3:37 AM

A Brilliant Article!

Dr.YarisÂ´ text is rich and transparent, carrying the message straight to many readersÂ´hearts. I stay in Russian-language publishing during last 36 years, producing better quality reading material for Russian-speaking and -reading audience world wide, to both, Jews and non-Jews. Many of my readers are Russian-speaking doctors and people related to medical profession(s). Wish this article could be translated in Russian.Due to a dark communist heritage, most of Russian-reading doctors and folks in medical profession still do not read English.

Sincerely,Aharon Goldstein,Russica Publishers, Inc., Berlin- NYC

(9)
raye,
September 2, 2007 10:18 PM

Mixed Feelings

I take issue with Dr. Yaris about what a surgeon's attitude toward a patient heis going to operate on should be. From my own experience, I was prepared for major surgery years ago because I was told how I would have to lead my life postsurgery, what medication I would have to take for the rest of my life. What's more, as I was wheeled in to the operating room under sedation, I heard the surgeon ask, "how do you feel". I remember saying that I was in God's hands.By contrast, in most recent surgery, I was not told what to expect or how I would have to lead the rest of my life. I writhed in agony after surgery, and experienced side effects from the medication prescribed.For me, the shofar does not wail. It gives a healing clarion call.

(8)
gitty landman,
November 6, 2005 12:00 AM

so beautiful

it's not the doctors whose medication helped the healing that I remember and feel grateful to, it's the ones who were human and compassionate even when they couldn't help. thank you for a beautiful essay. it gives hope for the future.

(7)
Anonymous,
September 30, 2004 12:00 AM

A true and beautiful article

This article is so true. From someone who attended both medical and nursing school and who now works very close to doctors in hospitals. I can remember myself getting detached from my human emotions but caught myself while it was happening, I had to struggle with my inner self to keep myself 'human'. I also have met both sides of doctors, those who are compassionate and those who are detached, these happens to alot of people in the Healthcare field because of all the situation we are faced with almost everyday. May the Almighty bless you Dr. Yaris and the job that you do.

(6)
Dr. Anthony M. Tolpen, Ed.D.,
September 13, 2004 12:00 AM

A lesson to be learned

Gives me something to reflect on and teaches me to be more compassionate in my everyday dealings.

(5)
Dina,
September 13, 2004 12:00 AM

A meaningful prayer

Beautiful article, beautiful message. I think that a meaningful prayer would be that our eyes be opened to those around us without having to be touched first by tragedy.

(4)
Beverly Kurtin,
September 12, 2004 12:00 AM

Been there, done that...

While reading this story, my mind was thinking "been there, done that." I worked in the anesthesia department of a large county hospital over a decade ago. Surgeons ran the gamut from those that seemingly had no emotions to those who could have been Hawkeye on M*A*S*H.

It always bothered me to hear a fellow human being spoken of in terms of their disease. "The breast cancer in room 456," or "the gallstones" in the waiting area.

You could always tell the kind of surgeon you'd want working on you by the way they talked. "Mrs. Smith in room 456 has a nasty tumor…John's in pretty bad shape in pre-op…" Those were the people I would want working on me.

(Many years later I required coronary by-pass surgery. I chose the doctor who was the lone surgeon on duty the night a DOA arrived in the hospital's ER bay. He pulled back the sheet and pronounced his own mother dead. That was the day, according to him, he became a good doctor.)

Perhaps the saddest day of my time in the OR was the day I found myself pushing gurneys out of my way without even looking at the people who were on them. They were just part of the background. The compassion had been squeezed out of me; I'd become inured to the suffering of others.

That was the day I quit.

(3)
John Fraser,
September 12, 2004 12:00 AM

Its a nice wee storie

We dont think about other's, because we are to busy thinking about ourselves,Its only as we get older that we start to look around,Or something happen's to our nearest and dearest.But never mind Time cures all

(2)
Anonymous,
September 12, 2004 12:00 AM

Beautiful story with a beautiful ending!

How very well written and so very true.
I have encountered both types of doctors. Both can be excellent at what
they do. But, the one with the more human feelings has more to give to the patient. Thank you for this article.

(1)
Barbara Rosenthal,
September 12, 2004 12:00 AM

Change is possible?

I was just speaking to a friend today re; not believing in the ability to change our lives in our 60's; tonight he sent me this article. With tears in my eyes I read of Yoda and Dr. Rosen and thought "MAYBE CHANGE IS POSSIBLE/"